Allen should 'fess up and be done with it.

[Stray Pooch]

Hi everyone!  Nice new format.  I can't spend as much time as I used to (by far) but I thought I'd drop in and toss up this tidbit.

OK, so for those who may not know me, I'm a Republican, but I am not a wingnut.  I live here in the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia and we are dealing with Senator Allen's "macaca" comment and now the accusations about use of the "N" word back in his younger days.  Now let me make this clear:  I don't buy for a moment that these accusations are anything but an attempt to unseat a Republican in a red state.  I was talking to our local Dem party worker and he told me that negative campaigning was perfectly OK.  It's not his party's job to try to make our candidate look good.  Spoken like a true Clintonite.  Of course, Repubs are just as guilty of negative campagining and some around here may recall that as the reason I voted Dem last governor's race.

But having said all that, and in spite of the motivation behind the accusations, I'd bet my bippie (age alert!) that the Senator said it.  Come on, is it really a surprise that a southern boy used non-PC terms to describe those of African descent in his youth?  The Dems next door (West VA) have a full-fledged KKK boy in their Senate seat. And they get a whole lotta pork out of that particular barrel.  If Allen is using the "N" word now - THAT's news.  I say dump him and be done.  But if he did idiotic things in his youth, who didn't?  Our generation is the one that finally made racism (and not just discrimination) ugly and unacceptable.  Our parents grew up racist and taught it to us.  We are teaching our kids not to believe that nonsense.  At some point, there has to be a transistional generation in any social change.  Ours was that generation.  That means we started out doing things like using the "N" word and making racial jokes when we were kids (Yeah, I did it.).  But we ultimately rejected that idea and started thinking clearly about racial differences.   It's something to be proud of, yet we are ashamed of it.  If we were cancer survivors or had gone throught the great depression like our parents and grandparents we wouldn't be ashamed to talk about our troubles.  But nobody wants to admit learning - and practicing - racism (even the subtle kinds) as a kid. 

I started losing respect for Bill Clinton (as opposed to just disagreeing with him) when he made that idiotic comment about not inhaling.  Of course he inhaled - and who cares.  I personally never did pot, but most of my friends did. (I was just scared of Dad finding out - thanks, Dad!).  He could have said he spent the seventies high and I wouldn't have had a problem with it.  But he tried to fudge it by appealing to the "cool" crowd without losing the "straight" vote.  Screw that!  Tell the truth and be damned.  Allen is doing the same thing here.  I think if he just came out and 'fess up this nonsense would get behind him.  He should say something like, "Look, I said and did some ignorant, terrible things back in my old college days.  I know it was wrong now, and I'm truly sorry.  But back then, it's the way everybody I knew talked and felt.  We had to get over that and we have.  I hope those I offended back then and now can find some peace in my coming, even belatedly, to an understanding of how wrong what I did was.   But I do not intend to leave this race because someone has brought up old mistakes."    The Dems would be disarmed, most people would forgive and move on, and we could get to some OTHER issues (such as who the candidates are sleeping with and whether they wear boxers of briefs). 

Anyway, nice to see you all.  I'll probably get to spend a bit more time here in a few weeks when I go off to a school for a week.  Have a good one, Saloonies! 

[BT]

Looks like Webb has some splainin to do also:

Webb Denies Ever Using Word as Epithet
Racial Slur Overshadowing All Else in Contest

By Michael D. Shear
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, September 28, 2006; B01



RICHMOND, Sept. 27 -- Democratic Senate candidate James Webb on Wednesday sought to explain remarks he had made a day earlier, in which he refused to say whether he had used the "N-word," but he insisted he has never used it as a racial epithet aimed at anyone.

"I don't think that there's anyone who grew up around the South that hasn't had the word pass through their lips at one time in their life," he told the Richmond Times-Dispatch on Tuesday. "If you read 'Fields of Fire,' that word and a lot of other words are in the book." "Fields of Fire" is a novel Webb wrote about the Vietnam War.

Spokeswoman Kristian Denny Todd said Webb, an author and former Marine, "did not want to make any blanket statements that he has never, ever uttered the word. Jim has not used the word directed at another person. He's never used it himself as a racial slur."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/27/AR2006092702062_pf.html

[Plane]

  I grew up in the south , with a Mama that taught me never to be so impolite.

   No I don't use the N word , tho I am bemused at times at its power .


   Hurry back SP and tell us how the school was .

[Lanya]

Yay Straypooch!
Have been missing you.  Hugs.

[Michael Tee]

Good to see you back, Pooch.

You've got a point, or maybe a quarter-point, about what Allen did in his youth.  Maybe EVERYONE used the N-word back then.   But did everyone put a severed deer head in a black family's mailbox?  And the "macaca" incident which started the whole thing was not exactly back somewhere in Allen's distant past, was it? 

IMHO, a lot of Virginia voters will probably stay with Allen because they think like him and despise or resent blacks, but are too smart to say so in public.  They want to be "politically correct," as does Allen himself, when he's not being careless about it, but in the anonymity of the polling booth, they will soothe the wounds of the man they think is being crucified, somewhat hypocritically, for a careless or unguarded moment. 

If the white voters of Virginia really gave a shit about blacks or the fight against racism, George Allen by now would be dead in the water.  His opponent would have opened a 40-point lead.  The fact is, his worst sin, in the eyes of most white Virginians, is a breach of social convention - - a convention whose sole value is preventing them from looking like the racists that almost all of them are.

[R.R.]

But did everyone put a severed deer head in a black family's mailbox?

There's no evidence Allen did that.

[BT]

Mikey spews: If the white voters of Virginia really gave a shit about blacks or the fight against racism, George Allen by now would be dead in the water.  His opponent would have opened a 40-point lead.  The fact is, his worst sin, in the eyes of most white Virginians, is a breach of social convention - - a convention whose sole value is preventing them from looking like the racists that almost all of them are.

And yet Webb, his Democrat opponent is accused of doing the same thing. And Webb used to be a Reagan Republican, you know,  one of those states rights types, and we all know that they are racist as the day is long.

So all things being equal, what does Webb bring to the table that Allen doesn't, other than wanting to cut and run from Iraq.

[_JS]

I used the n-word once. I learned it from my grandmother. My dad politely came into my room and told me that he'd kick my ass if he ever heard me use it again (he was a drill instructor for the Army at the time). It didn't take me long to appreciate the reasons not to use it for more than just fear of having my ass kicked. It helps of course that I've always gone to schools that were very mixed ethnically, so it was never a foreign concept to me.

It amazes me to see so much racism today. There are still parents who scramble to get their kids into schools with no black children. There are towns and subdivisions that have groups of people who make a concerted effort to run out black or Hispanic families. I'm not talking about the distant past either, this is now.

As for Virginia, this really doesn't surprise me. I agree with Pooch. I'm tired of politicians that whimper away from questions, be they Democrats, Republicans, Independents, or what have you. I'm not surprised someone dug some similar dirt on the Democratic candidate either. The sad news is that there are parts of Virginia where this will probably win votes (*cough* Lee County *cough*).

[Amianthus]

It amazes me to see so much racism today.

And yet, I see more racism in the northern states than in the south. All while the northerners complain about "southern racism."

[domer]

Two things should be noted, Ami, about your last post. "Racism" or "ethnocentrism" seems to be a peculiar form of an historical, political orientation to the world. In a sense, it's a (necessary?) scourge of the human condition until eradicated. This fits in perfectly with the conception of human nature enshrined in our constitution: vying good and evil with a stellar architecture needed to help channel people to the moral, salutary way of living. In this sense, racism exists in the North.

But just as truly, though unofficial structures may sprout up (and be deconstructed) based on these base instincts in the North, the South went ever farther in degree and official sanction of racism, making it the law, and all that implies. This phenomenon gives Southerner racism its particular virulence, historical insult and continuing threat.

While, in a sense, the North is "working things out in the social-political arena," the South is embodying a once-offficial viewpoint of the government, with all its inimical implications, a far more corrosive and dangerous phenomenon than in the North.

When will repair eradicate history in the South? Not yet, but there's hope.

[_JS]

My examples, which I could go into more detail about if anyone really wanted to, are all based in the South. Of course, that is where I live so my experiences are here. I cannot truly comment on the Northern or Western United States as I don't have life experiences there beyond occasional visits to specific areas.

It would be foolish, of course, to believe that racism or general bigotry based on superficial reasons isn't possible anywhere. Yet, as Domer points out there was an official and institutional racist structure in the South that was never fully overthrown as it was in South Africa, but instead phased out.

[Michael Tee]

<<There's no evidence Allen did that.[put a severed deer head in a black family's mailbox]>>

There's plenty of evidence.  One of the three men on the hunting trip has told the story, and the third hunter, who has since died, had also told the story (without the racial element) to a man who has now come forward.

[Michael Tee]

<<Mikey spews>>

Anyone who calls these racist bastards what they are is "spewing."  Good, shows where YOU'RE coming from.

<<And yet Webb, his Democrat opponent is accused of doing the same thing. And Webb used to be a Reagan Republican, you know,  one of those states rights types, and we all know that they are racist as the day is long.

<<So all things being equal, what does Webb bring to the table that Allen doesn't, other than wanting to cut and run from Iraq. >>

All things being equal, they're NOT equal.  Webb never stuffed a severed deer head in a black man's mail-box, for one thing.  Hasn't singled out any black men recently and called them "macaca."  Hasn't been accused, far as I can recall, of displaying a noose (now that's really sick) in his LAW OFFICE, displayed the Confederate Flag in said office. 

Look, nobody is saying Webb is the IDEAL.  He might be a piece of shit just like Allen, only not as bad.  Sometimes a choice has to be made between the bad and the less bad.  Looks to me like the choice is crystal clear.  Here, the Webb voters also get the benefit of "cut and run," which is to say, sanity, common sense, honesty and the ability to admit to a huge mistake as opposed to blindly following the road to disaster to serve the gods of Bush's ego, militarism and fascism.

Any other questions?

[The_Professor]

So, it matters not what Allen's track record is? I honestly do notr know, but, for argument's sake, let's say he was the Second Coming as far as enlightened policies, etc. and well thought of. Would his alleged behavior some time ago disqualify him? Where does a politiicans record play into the picture, I wonder?

[Michael Tee]

<<So, it matters not what Allen's track record is? >>

Yeah, his track record is that he doesn't want to leave Iraq to Iraqis.  Wants to see more coffins coming home flags.  Wants to see more Americans have their faces burned off, for the sake of "Iraqi democracy."  Horseshit like that. 

<<I honestly do notr know, but, for argument's sake, let's say he was the Second Coming as far as enlightened policies, etc. and well thought of. >>

Well, let's face it, everybody's "well thought of" somewhere, even if it's only in KKK circles.  Although I'm afraid that recent word of Senator Macacawitz's less-than-pureblooded-Anglo-Saxon ancestry has probably ruined his good name in many previously friendly Klaverns of the Sunny South.

<<Would his alleged behavior some time ago disqualify him? Where does a politiicans record play into the picture, I wonder>>

Uh, the "macaca" incident was not "some time ago," unfortunately.  The earlier years, of multiple racial slurs and the truly bizarre deer's head incident serve merely to put the "macaca" incident in context and shed a little bit of light on the veracity of the good Senator's various explanations of it.